Recovery of erroneously paid salary from Class-III and Class-IV employees is impermissible in law, provided the employee played no role in the miscalculation or conferment of the higher pay scale.

1. The petitioners herein, who are the Head Teachers, serving in various Schools of the State of Himachal Pradesh. They were initially recruited as JBT Teachers and subsequently stand promoted as Head Teachers as per the petitions. Their grievance is that the respondents-State started effecting recoveries from their pay without issuance of any Show Cause Notice etc. It is in this backdrop, that the petitioners have approached this Court with the prayer that the respondents be restrained from effecting recoveries from their wages, more so in light of the fact that the petitioners are serving as Class-III employees and recoveries from Class-III employees has been held to be impermissible in law by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

2. On the other hand, the stand of the State is that as the petitioners have been paid the pay scale higher than the one to which they were entitled for, it is in this backdrop that recoveries are being effected. Learned Advocate General referred to Paras-2 and 4 of the preliminary submissions and submitted that the petitioners were not promoted as Head Teachers, but were simply placed as Head Teachers from the post of JBT Teachers and, therefore, they were not entitled for the higher pay scale which erroneously stood granted to them and it is for this reason that now recoveries are being effected.

3. I have heard learned Counsel for the parties and have also carefully gone through the pleadings as well as documents appended therewith.

4. It is not in dispute that the petitioners are all Class-III employees. It is also not in dispute that the recoveries which are being effected by the Department are on the ground that the petitioners after being placed as Head Teachers have been granted a higher pay scale to which they were otherwise legally not entitled.

5. Fact of the matter is that the petitioners happen to be Class-III employees. It is also a matter of record that higher pay scale, if any, granted to the petitioners was granted by the Department and the petitioners had no role in the conferment of the said higher pay scale.

6. Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, in State of Punjab and others Versus Rafiq Masih (White Washer) and others, AIR 2015 SC 696, has been pleased to cull out certain situations in which recovery is impermissible and one of the situations culled out by the Hon’ble Supreme Court is recovery from Class-III and Cl ass-IV employees.

7. In light of the fact that the petitioners happen to be Class-III employees, recovery from them is impermissible in law in light of the above pronouncement by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

8. Therefore, as the act of the respondent-Department of effecting recoveries from the petitioners does violence to the law declared by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, these petitions are allowed and disposed of with the direction that no recoveries shall be effected from the petitioners by the Department on the ground that higher pay scale stood conferred upon them. The amount recovered from the petitioners, if any, till date shall be refunded back to them within three months from today.

9. However, it is clarified that this Court has not made any observation with regard to the conferment of higher pay scale to the petitioners erroneously and if that is the case, the Department is at liberty to proceed in the matter in accordance with law, but the only caveat is that recoveries will not be made from the petitioners in any situation whatsoever and rectification can be made prospectively.

10. At this stage, learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioners be given liberty to agitate the issue of Fundamental Rules-22 independently, if so advised, liberty granted. The petitions stand disposed of. Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, also stand disposed of accordingly.